Impropaganda
(after a paragraph by Ray Bradbury)
this endoscope ends
in a lensed cobra eye,
slithers its way up the gut
squirming in echoing wells
to feed on the green poisons
of life gone sour, drinking
pulses of liquid melancholy,
no Asimovian micronauts
on this inner landscape, only
the sniffing of polyps, ulcers
and tumours...
the operator peers
through lensed eye, beyond
slow digestive simmers into
the soul, what does he see?
he dares not say, but he sees,
through this throb and suction
he shares intimacies deeper
than lovers, penetrates realms
of slow sludge in moist darkness
way beyond recognition into a
trembling and a not-trembling
a softness and a hardness
a warmth and a coolness
in veins and blotches
and layers of cells
and when you say love
do you also love this? for
these pulsing organs are me too,
it begins the moment of conception
in the womb, and flickers on
moments after the me-ness of mind
winks off, and all that’s
left is this flesh...
Page(s) 9
magazine list
- Features
- zines
- 10th Muse
- 14
- Acumen
- Agenda
- Ambit
- Angel Exhaust
- ARTEMISpoetry
- Atlas
- Blithe Spirit
- Borderlines
- Brando's hat
- Brittle Star
- Candelabrum
- Cannon's Mouth, The
- Chroma
- Coffee House, The
- Dream Catcher
- Equinox
- Erbacce
- Fabric
- Fire
- Floating Bear, The
- French Literary Review, The
- Frogmore Papers, The
- Global Tapestry
- Grosseteste Review
- Homeless Diamonds
- Interpreter's House, The
- Iota
- Journal, The
- Lamport Court
- London Magazine, The
- Magma
- Matchbox
- Matter
- Modern Poetry in Translation
- Monkey Kettle
- Moodswing
- Neon Highway
- New Welsh Review
- North, The
- Oasis
- Obsessed with pipework
- Orbis
- Oxford Poetry
- Painted, spoken
- Paper, The
- Pen Pusher Magazine
- Poetry Cornwall
- Poetry London
- Poetry London (1951)
- Poetry Nation
- Poetry Review, The
- Poetry Salzburg Review
- Poetry Scotland
- Poetry Wales
- Private Tutor
- Purple Patch
- Quarto
- Rain Dog
- Reach Poetry
- Review, The
- Rialto, The
- Second Aeon
- Seventh Quarry, The
- Shearsman
- Smiths Knoll
- Smoke
- South
- Staple
- Strange Faeces
- Tabla Book of New Verse, The
- Thumbscrew
- Tolling Elves
- Ugly Tree, The
- Weyfarers
- Wolf, The
- Yellow Crane, The